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Morenz and her mother had talked many times about end-of-life decisions after Morenz's father suffered a stroke in 2000 and moved to a nursing home in Connecticut.
"My mom would say, `I don't want this for myself.' She begged me never to put her in a nursing home. She wanted what she considered to be a good quality of life."
Morenz also helped her mother execute a living will that expressed those wishes. "You're not asking for euthanasia," Morenz said. "You're asking that nothing be done to try to keep you living in a condition that's unacceptable to you."
The value of discussing and documenting end-of-life wishes before a crisis became dramatically clear in 2005 through the case of Terri Schiavo, a Florida woman whose husband and parents disagreed over whether to withdraw her feeding tube.
Schiavo, who had suffered brain damage and was unable to speak or care for herself, did not have a living will, and the debate over treatment reached Congress, the president and the federal courts.
Fortunately for Morenz, both her mother, who died in February, and her father, who died in October, had living wills. She felt she understood what they wanted, and she had been legally designated to make health care decisions for them...........
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Along with the first robins, tulips and term papers, spring at U of T is marked by the arrival of anti-abortion activists. Around this time each year, U of T Students for Life and their off-campus allies break out a set of posters from the U.S. group Genocide Awareness Project and protest on campus.
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Connell claimed repeatedly that women who choose abortion are psychologically damaged by the experience. With adoption, she argued, “There isn’t that terrible, terrible regret, for the rest of her life.”
She also covered issues from capital punishment to the Terri Schiavo case.
“Terri Schiavo could smile, could communicate, the media didn’t want you to know that because we live in a very anti-life society,” she said.
The mood at the counter-protest was upbeat, with cheers greeting a call of “20 years of reproductive choice in this country!” Chantal Sundaram, a CUPE 3902 staff rep, said the counter-protesters were well-received by passing students............
Students rally to abort ‘genocide’ demonstration
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